The invention is an educational vehicle for exloring and viewing earth's surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,177, teaches a dual-view, immersible periscope which is particularly suitable for use as a toy or learning tool in aquatic environments such as bath tubs, sinks, tidal pools and outdoor wadding pools where children play and explore. The periscope has an entrance aperture, an upper viewing compartment and a lower compartment. The upper compartment operates in air and the lower compartment contains the entrance aperture and floods with water when the periscope is immersed. The upper and lower compartments are separated from one another by a transparent window. The upper compartment surrounds and isolates its air space from the surrounding water in order to provide a completely still image of activity taking place beneath the surface even though it may be turbulent with wave action. Additional enhancements include magnification, underwater accessory lighting, sound effects, torpedo tubes, and means for placing transparencies over the entrance aperture to integrate images with underwater action.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,334 teaches a toy craft which is intended for both amusement and educational purposes. The toy craft is adapted to assume a plurality of distinctive craft forms. The toy craft includes a cocoon-like, full enclosure member which has an interior and an external attachment mechanism for the reception and detachment of sets of molded features. Each component of each of the sets is of a shape which, when in attachment with the enclosure member, gives the appearance of one of the distinctive craft forms. The enclosure member includes a first portion and a second portion and attachment members for releasably securing the first portion to the second portion. An access door forms a portion of the enclosure member and permits access between the outside of the enclosure member and the enclosure member interior, a seat within the enclosure member interior and fully adjustable with respect to the enclosure member. A foot control mechanism is adjustably secured to the floor of the enclosure member interior. A hand control mechanism is adjustably fixed within the interior of the full enclosure member. An external vision apparatus is secured to the top of the enclosure member and has a first end extending into the enclosure member interior and a second end extending away from the enclosure member. A plurality of attitudinal instruments provides attitudinal displays. The attitudinal instruments are within the enclosure member interior. The analog computer interacts with the foot control mechanism. The hand control mechanism and the attitudinal instruments operate together such that manipulation of the hand and foot control mechanism results in coordinated changes taking place in the attitudinal instruments. The fully enclosed toy craft is intended for both amusement and educational purposes and has the ability to assume a multitude of forms with each form resembling a different type of vehicle. The craft's interior resembles a scaled down version of a commander's cabin in a real craft and includes audio visual material, calculating apparatus and an assortment of readout or instrumentation devices. In addition, an analog computer interacting with various items in the commander's cabin, in response to stimuli provided by the operator moving hand or foot control devices gives the operator the illusion of being in control of a real craft.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,227, teaches a passive panoramic viewing system which affords panoramic forward, side, rear and underneath views to operators of a wide range of transportation mechanism which facilitates safe maneuvering thereof. The transportation mechanism includes private vehicles, full trailers, semi-trailers, busses, aircraft and ships.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,673 teaches a toy viewing assembly kit for producing multi-directional image reflecting configurations which includes a plurality of angular reflecting sections having reflecting elements disposed therein and hollow extension sections. The individual sections have coupling portions for permitting removable interconnection thereof. The coupling portions allow unrestricted axial rotations of adjacently connected sections thereby creating multi-directional assembly configurations. The assembly configurations provide multi-axis image reflections viewable by the child user.
Numerous devices are known in the art for reflecting an image of a viewed object. Such devices are commonly referred to as periscopes. However, periscope-type devices are generally rigidly constructed so as to restrict their directional image reflecting characteristics. Further, such devices utilize an optical lens for producing the desired optical reflection of a viewed object.
The novelty of the viewing assembly kit lies in its functional utility as a child's toy which is capable of random assembly configurations limited only by the imagination of the child user. The viewing assembly kit provides sectional components that can be randomly interconnected and rotated relative to each other so as to create multi-directional image reflecting configurations.